


since you're still here

by uhhuhhoney



Series: lucky [8]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Getting Back Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, quarantine fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:34:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23673172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uhhuhhoney/pseuds/uhhuhhoney
Summary: Johnny finishes his beer before he responds. “I think it would be good,” he says, pausing to think for a minute before continuing, “if we got back together while we’re all stuck in the house.”
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Lee Taeyong/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten
Series: lucky [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1016634
Comments: 27
Kudos: 131





	since you're still here

**Author's Note:**

> you people would not believe what i've been through the past two years
> 
>  **KINKS:** literally just a blowjob. in the shower. there's cum eating i guess
> 
>  **WARNINGS:** talk about the quarantine, ten's mental health problems, taeyong's drug abuse problems though it's very vaguely discussed

“What are you doing?”

The voice whisks away the fog in Ten’s head. He looks up and Johnny is standing there, one hand clasped around a beer, his eyebrow raised as if the question doesn’t need to be answered. He offers the bottle and Ten accepts it with a grimace, turning in on himself slightly when Johnny sits down next to him.

The four of them have gotten along well enough for the past two years. Ten can hardly believe that it’s been so long now. His veins thrum with excitement when he thinks about the past, how everything felt so new and different, every day a rollercoaster ride when him and Jaehyun first moved in with Taeyong and Johnny.

Having three sources of income for the same household made things easy. But things are different now, and Jaehyun’s office job has been put on hold for God knows how long, and Johnny’s restaurant is basically closed at this point. Taeyong’s webcamming is what used to bring in what they wanted for extra fun, but now it’s what they’re all leaning on.

And Taeyong is tired, his body even weaker than it was two years ago. Ten has been bitching about it for months, claiming somebody needs to worry about Taeyong the way everybody worries about him, his partial hospitalization over the summer leaving him with a bad attitude. Now Ten would do anything to get out of their apartment, but with three people hovering around him at all times, it’s impossible for him to do anything except go to sleep when he gets into one of his little moods.

Yuta has kindly offered him a place to stay when it all gets to be too much, but being in him and Jaehyun’s old apartment makes him feel weird. Ten has laid on his couch a few times, stared at the curtains in the dark and willed them to move on their own just by being deprived of sleep, but mostly he stays in his own bed and tries to match his breathing to Johnny’s as a way to get himself to calm down.

It doesn’t necessarily make sense that everything feels so different for Ten now. It has nothing to do with the quarantine, really, though being around Jaehyun and Johnny constantly is definitely giving him more anxiety than he knows what to do with. It’s just that his medications got changed when he was in the hospital again, and adjusting to the new feelings has proven to be more difficult than he remembers it ever being before. It wasn’t a lofty change - mood stabilizer to mood stabilizer - but something isn’t clicking, even after nine months. Johnny often catches him staring at the walls, just like tonight, with a blank expression on his face, like a part of his brain is completely gone.

The suggestion that Yuta made a while ago still lingers in his mind, and Ten catches himself practicing a speech for his doctor in the bathroom mirror every now and then. He never felt like he had any sort of attention deficit problem before, but being on sedatives for so long has probably changed the way that his brain works. Yuta offered to supply him with Adderall, but after watching Taeyong spiral into codependency, Ten swore that he would never buy anything from their friends ever again.

Johnny thinks it’s a good idea. Jaehyun, for once, is on board with the idea of Ten taking another pill. “If it means you’ll stop looking like a coma patient,” he had said when Ten brought it up, to which Johnny jabbed him in the side with his elbow, never used to their bickering.

But there’s nothing he can do about it right now. Being under quarantine means the appointments he has with his psychiatrist are over webcam, which is probably the least helpful thing Ten can even think of. He hasn’t scheduled an appointment with his therapist in well over three months, and a phone call definitely wouldn’t do him any good right now, so why bother paying for it?

After a short silence, Ten takes a sip of the beer. He winces. He misses drinking, and he’s technically allowed to do it now, but keeping hard liquor around when Taeyong is self-medicating is a poor idea. “You work tonight?” he asks, handing the bottle back to Johnny.

“Just a couple hours,” Johnny answers. He keeps his gaze on Ten’s face while taking a long drink, but Ten doesn’t notice, staring at his socked feet on the floor. Johnny swallows. “Are you gonna be okay?”

He asks this every night, and Ten always feels exactly the same. He’s tired of being lonely at night, though, just because things have changed. Nobody is ever unwelcome in any situation, but an unspoken agreement drifted around last year that they would start keeping to themselves more. Taeyong was always the neediest of the four of them, but even he hasn’t touched Ten or Johnny in months, instead pawing at Jaehyun’s shirt when he’s desperate for attention.

“Actually,” Ten says, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. “I might crawl into bed with Jae and Yongie.”

Johnny finishes his beer before he responds. “I think it would be good,” he says, pausing to think for a minute before continuing, “if we got back together while we’re all stuck in the house.”

Still, they haven’t _separated_. Ten doesn’t understand why there’s such a blatant disconnect between them now, and if he thinks about it for too long, it becomes one of the things that ultimately sent him back to the hospital in July. He doesn’t like to blame other people for his outbursts, especially not when something like that was bound to happen sooner or later, but having three people so close to him became really important, and watching it fizzle away was heartbreaking.

He never really thought he was in love with Jaehyun or Taeyong. But maybe he was just repressing it all.

They don’t continue the conversation. Ten is curled into Johnny’s side on the couch until he leaves for work, and then he drags himself down the hallway to Jaehyun and Taeyong’s room. The door is slightly ajar and the television is on mute, blue light shining onto the bed. Ten knocks quietly, just in case Taeyong is asleep already, then pushes the door open.

“Hey,” Jaehyun says, and Taeyong tilts his head back from where he’s lying on his boyfriend’s chest, gazing up at Ten with half-lidded eyes. Ten smiles, shy suddenly, as if he’s never had sex with both of them at the same time.

Taeyong must pick up on his energy. “Come on,” he says, grabbing the corner of the blanket and lifting it up to reveal the empty spot on the bed next to himself. Ten sheds his sweatpants before crawling into bed with them, and his heartbeat slows as Taeyong rolls over to press into his side.

Having Taeyong in his arms is always a welcome feeling, which is why Ten has never minded Taeyong being so clingy, even with the others. “Johnny left?” Jaehyun asks. Ten nods. “The other day he asked me what I thought about you.”

“What does that mean?” Ten asks. Taeyong leans up to press his face against his neck, his nose freezing from how cold they tend to keep their room at night.

Jaehyun starts with a sigh. “I think he thinks you’re doing so badly because of us,” he says, and Ten blinks up at the ceiling. He’s starting to think the psychology books Johnny was reading left him able to read his mind. “Which I don’t think is really plausible. If you think about it. But it probably isn’t helping.” He pauses, looks at Ten, waits for a response. When he doesn’t get one, he adds, “Have you talked to your psychiatrist about it?”

“I miss you,” Ten says quickly, hoping Jaehyun will forget about his question. Taeyong’s breath is slowing against his neck. Jaehyun looks at him with the expression of pity that he typically has when they have conversations about his mental health, which isn’t helpful in the slightest.

It grows quiet and Ten turns to the television. Taeyong is mostly asleep against him, twitching lightly every few moments, and Ten can’t help but to run his fingers through his hair soothingly. He almost misses when Taeyong used to get migraines and crawl into bed with him, sweaty and miserable, begging for Ten to just rest his palm on his forehead for hours at a time.

They used to understand each other so well - their bodies fit together perfectly every time, no room for complaint anywhere. Ten would leave Taeyong exhausted, panting, wet in more ways than one. Taeyong is still the only person who can render Ten breathless, his beauty unmatched by anyone else Ten has ever seen. He can get hard just from thinking about the way Taeyong looks up at him through his eyelashes.

But now isn’t the time. “We never went anywhere,” Jaehyun is saying, and Ten blinks away the rest of his dirty thoughts.

“You did, though.” Ten reaches out for the blanket and drags it up over his and Taeyong’s shoulders. Jaehyun is staring at him. “It used to feel like we were all happy together. Now it feels like we’re all happy separately.” He pauses. “If we’re even happy at all.”

Jaehyun looks at Taeyong. “Maybe we can talk about it later,” he suggests. “The four of us, I mean.” Ten rolls his eyes. Jaehyun grabs the remote and turns the television off, leaving the three of them in darkness.

* * *

Ten wakes up to wet lips pressed against the side of his neck. It’s not an unwelcome feeling at all, but he’s confused for a moment, not used to Johnny being so affectionate at a random time. He struggles to open his eyes, light streaming in from the windows, but he only has to blink at the ceiling once to remember that he’s in bed with Jaehyun and Taeyong, and he somehow managed to sleep all night.

“Yongie,” Ten mumbles, and his mouth feels full, like all of his teeth have somehow doubled in size overnight. He isn’t used to sleeping for so many hours at a time. Taeyong makes a noise of acknowledgement and grinds his teeth against Ten’s neck, just lightly enough for Ten to hum in response. “Yongie, what time is it?”

“A little past eight,” Taeyong answers, breath warm on Ten’s skin. Ten reaches up to rub his eyes and jolts in surprise when the door opens next to him.

Jaehyun sets a cup of coffee down on the bedside table. “Here, baby,” he says, and Taeyong springs up in bed to grab the cup offered to him. “Coffee, Ten? Oh, Johnny’s on the couch, so be quiet if you go out there.”

Ten stares at him. “I’m okay,” he says.

Being with the two of them like this is confusing. Ten silently watches Jaehyun move towards the dresser and pull open drawers, looking for something clean to wear, as if they can leave their apartment for any reason. Taeyong sits next to him, cup of coffee nestled in his lap, pulling at the strings on his hoodie, his gaze also fixed on Jaehyun.

It feels stupidly domestic, and Ten doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like the feeling it creates in his stomach. Even him and Johnny still feel new together, not like they’ve been in love for twenty years. “I need my meds,” he mumbles, a bad excuse. He rolls out of bed and doesn’t hesitate to grab Jaehyun’s cup and bring it with him down the hallway to his and Johnny’s own room.

They need to do laundry. Ten has been wearing the same sweatpants for a week now, which is probably having some sort of affect on his mental health. He digs around in the bedside table drawer for his pills and swallows one with the coffee, just to counteract the drowsiness. They’re supposed to be taken at night, but they don’t put him to sleep, anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

Ten chugs the rest of the coffee, burns his throat, leaves the cup in his room. Jaehyun uses too much sugar. “Yongie,” he yells, peeking out into the hallway. Taeyong emerges at the doorway of his and Jaehyun’s room. “Shower?”

The yellow light of their bathroom makes Taeyong look sickly. Ten reaches up to comb his fingers through his hair, tugging gently. “Your roots need to be done,” he says, and Taeyong murmurs an agreement, busy taking his underwear off. Ten pulls his hoodie off for him and presses cold hands to his sides, Taeyong’s flinch putting a grin on his face.

They get into the shower and Ten pulls Taeyong into his arms, one hand on the back of his head, keeping him pressed against his chest. He likes this because they’re both the same height and Taeyong is thinner than him, making Ten feel like he can be comforting for once. “Hey,” he mumbles, water cascading down the back of Taeyong’s head and neck.

“Hi,” Taeyong quietly replies. Their bodies are slowly warming up and Ten can feel every inch of Taeyong pressed against him, a welcome feeling, much different from when he showers with Johnny and they just bicker about how much conditioner they’re supposed to be using.

(Yeonji has explained it to Johnny multiple times, but he never seems to remember.)

Ten leans down to press his lips to Taeyong’s shoulder. “I miss you,” he says. Taeyong hums, his hands sliding down to rest on Ten’s hips. “You’re always asleep when I’m awake.”

“You’re always awake when I’m asleep,” Taeyong retorts, and Ten breathes out a laugh.

They stand like that for a long time, quiet, fogging up the bathroom with the hot water. Taeyong feels limp in Ten’s arms and Ten wonders, briefly, if he’s been eating anything at all, but Jaehyun _must_ be forcing him to eat something every now and then, right? It was always hard to get Taeyong to eat, especially when he was high, but it never spiraled into something like it did with Ten. Johnny approaches it with sincerity, always eager for Ten to bake with him and lick batter from the spatula. And it’s been different for the past year, but looking at Taeyong like this is making Ten feel the poison in his veins again.

Finally, Taeyong pulls away and looks at Ten, a nervous smile on his face. “What?” Ten asks, and Taeyong avoids his gaze again, looks down as he tightens his grip on Ten’s hips and falls to his knees on the shower floor.

“Oh,” Ten says dumbly, and Taeyong reaches a wet hand up to wrap around his cock, which is slowly hardening as Ten looks at him.

It wasn’t his intention, but he isn’t upset about it. Ten cups Taeyong’s face in the palm of his hand. “You’re so good to me,” he says, and Taeyong ducks his head to hide his smile, shy for the same reason Ten felt so nervous about getting into bed with him and Jaehyun last night.

Taeyong is still so eager to please and Ten lets his hands fall to the back of his head as he brings his cock into his mouth. “That’s it,” he whispers. Taeyong licks around the head before pressing forward, Ten pushing into the back of his throat easily. He doesn’t gag, doesn’t even falter, and Ten lets out a quiet moan of appreciation. He’d forgotten how good Taeyong was at this, how he always makes Ten feel like a god when he’s sucking him off.

Ten rests one of his hands on the shower wall to steady himself and uses his other hand to guide Taeyong, pushing gently on his head. He’s not willing to be rough with him again yet, even though he knows it’s what Taeyong likes. Jaehyun can use that to his own advantage later.

“You’re doing so good, Yongie,” Ten coos, and Taeyong whines around his cock, the vibrations making Ten’s toes curl. “Should I cum in your mouth?”

Taeyong stops moving, then, and looks up at Ten through his eyelashes, that same look Ten was fantasizing about last night. It sends a jolt of electricity through him and, without thinking, he grabs a fistful of Taeyong’s hair and shoves him further onto his cock. Taeyong gags around him and Ten moans again. “I’ll cum in your mouth, baby boy,” he says, Taeyong nodding, clearly unconcerned.

It doesn’t take long to bring Ten to the edge. It never has, really, especially with Taeyong. “Good boy,” he mumbles, his eyes rolling back as he cums down Taeyong’s throat, and Taeyong whines gently as his cock pulses against his tongue. “Good boy. Come up here, let me taste.”

Taeyong struggles to get to his feet and his knees are probably bruised, but he isn’t bothered by it. Ten pulls Taeyong into him and kisses him, hard, moaning at the taste of his cum combined with all of Taeyong’s drool. “Thank you, baby,” he says, their lips still pressed together, and Taeyong only nods, completely breathless.

The rest of their shower is uneventful. Ten makes a move to touch Taeyong, to at least jerk him off, but Taeyong stops him, shyly mumbles about how he can take care of it later. Jaehyun will probably want to fool around with both of them, but Ten doesn’t feel like thinking about it yet. He’s worrying in the way that Jaehyun used to worry when they all first started seeing each other.

Jaehyun’s worrying felt silly then, but Ten can thoroughly understand it now. He doesn’t want to feel like he’s intruding on someone else’s relationship, but is it really that big of a deal? Especially now, when they’ve already been through this before?

They should really talk about it, like Jaehyun said. But what Ten really wants to do is complain to Yuta.

“I’m gonna do some laundry,” Ten says when they’re out of the shower. Taeyong is rubbing at his head with a towel. “If you have anything for me to throw in.”

Taeyong drops his towel, opens the cabinet above the sink, and scans the shelves of little orange bottles. “I can just do some when you’re done,” he says simply, and Ten watches him choose a bottle and dump two little tablets into the palm of his hand.

“Your body is fucking deteriorating, Yong.” Ten wraps his towel around his waist and Taeyong leans down to drink from the sink, swallowing the pills easily.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and looks back at Ten. “Can we worry about one thing at a time?” he asks. Ten swallows thickly, drops the subject without another word. Taeyong is right, and he doesn’t feel like starting a fight, not one that’s going to involve all four of them, especially not right now. He opens the bathroom door and leaves with the fog, Taeyong still drying himself off.

* * *

“Didn't you _just_ wake up?”

Johnny looks at the beer in his hand, then back to Jaehyun. “Didn’t you break quarantine today?” he asks, and Ten grins, leaning against Johnny when he sits down next to him.

Jaehyun kicks his feet up onto the coffee table. “Lucy needed me to take her to the grocery store. You know my braindead parents aren’t doing anything for her.”

They can hear Taeyong rattling around in the kitchen. Ten chews on his bottom lip nervously, fully aware that they’re all about to have The Talk. It’s not uncommon for them to all be in the same room at once - they do live together - but it was becoming more and more uncommon for them to all be talking to each other openly. Ten normally isn’t up for talking, anyway, the broken part of his brain always taking over when it’s too quiet for too long.

“Here,” Taeyong says when he enters the room, holding out a White Claw for Ten. Ten accepts it gratefully and braces for impact as Taeyong sits down next to Jaehyun.

Luckily, he gets a few sips in before Johnny opens his mouth. “None of us are really doing well right now,” he starts, and Ten tilts his head in Johnny’s direction, confused at his choice of words. “I think it would be a good idea if we were all taking care of each other. The way we used to.”

“This is so dramatic,” Taeyong mumbles, pulling at the skin on his cuticles. “You know it makes Jae uncomfortable when we talk about it like this.”

Jaehyun wraps an arm around his shoulders. “It doesn’t make me uncomfortable,” he argues, and Taeyong sinks down in his seat. “I think it’s normal for us to be closer now. We’re all worrying about what’s going to happen. Especially with Ten.”

Ten looks up. “Me?” he asks.

“It’s hitting you the hardest,” Jaehyun rushes to explain. “I mean, Johnny is the only one who’s coming and going, and you don’t have regular visits with your doctors anymore.” Ten raises an eyebrow and Jaehyun looks at Johnny, presumably for help.

Johnny stumbles over his words. “This isn’t - I’m not just talking about Ten,” he says. Ten glares at Jaehyun, determined to silently make him feel bad for singling him out. “I’m talking about how it all feels different now. Like we shouldn’t have even moved in together.”

“It didn’t feel realistic,” Jaehyun says. Ten looks at Taeyong, wants to cross the room and gather his small frame into his arms again, but he stays still. “Like, none of this felt like it would last. That’s why we separated. Before it fell apart on its own.”

“I don’t know how to say this, Jae,” Ten says, ignoring Johnny’s glance. “But you’re the only one who felt that way.”

The room falls silent. Ten has something else to say, something _mean_ , but he doesn’t want to bring up something that would only be a point of contention for him and Taeyong. It probably isn’t his place to be psychoanalyzing his best friend so much, but he can’t help it - anything to get him out of his own head.

“Maybe this does make me uncomfortable,” Jaehyun finally says.

Taeyong is quietly chewing on his nails next to him. Johnny looks like he wants to point it out, but he doesn’t. “It’s better to be more natural about things, isn’t it?” Johnny asks, and Ten stares at him, bewildered.

“ _You’re_ the freak who brought it up,” he says.

He finishes his drink before Taeyong speaks up. “I miss it,” he says, still quiet, like he’s scared of saying something that will offend Jaehyun. “I really miss Ten, especially. I don’t know why, but it always felt like…” He trails off, looks at the palms of his hands for a moment. “It always felt like we connected the most.”

“I always picked up on that, too,” Jaehyun says. Him and Johnny exchange a look that Ten can’t quite understand, and he doesn’t like it. “It’s none of my business what you two do together. You already know I never cared about that.”

“I’d feel a lot better if we stopped talking about this,” Ten says suddenly. As confrontational as he’s feeling about it, being singled out always makes him feel like a charity case. He doesn’t need everybody worrying about the way he feels all the time. Even Taeyong made him uncomfortable, despite the fact that he agrees with him.

The conversation dies after that. Ten leaves for the kitchen to get another drink, and Taeyong hops up to follow him, eager for Ten to acknowledge his feelings.

“It’s all on you,” Johnny says, and Jaehyun looks at him, confused. “I know you’re the one with the most feelings about it.”

Jaehyun doesn’t respond. Johnny gets up to cross the room and stops to clap a hand down on Jaehyun’s shoulder. “Just don’t be afraid to talk to me anymore,” he says. Jaehyun stays quiet as he retreats into the kitchen.

**Author's Note:**

>  **TWITTER:** limecokes  
>  **CURIOUSCAT:** radicalize


End file.
